Sunday… Squid Binding

So I think I’ve finished quilting “The Squid” ~ I’m so close to completion, I’m giddy!!

I’ve been free-motion quilting it over the last week. It has been quite an education. I had to practice every idea on little quilt sandwiches of scrap fabric… and I still had a hard time with controlling my stitches. It doesn’t really matter, because it’s little things that you wouldn’t notice unless someone pointed it out. Plus, I’m sewing for fun and relaxation. The last thing I want to do is get all anal and stressed on sewing. But… I now have a list of things I want when I’m able to purchase a newer machine:

Pedal speed regulator. I found there is very little play in my pedal between too slow and too fast, so I often ended up with micro-stitches.

Bigger “throat” space. Not much room to move around.

Needle down control. How many times did I stop and have to manually put the needle down while my fabric moved a little?

Feed dog control. There is a cover for the feeddogs on my machine, but that leaves little space to fit the thickness of a quilt sandwich.

and if I’m rich: Stitch length regulator. mmmm, how nice.

It was hard for me to pick thread colors too. I went back and forth with the idea of using just one color for the whole quilt, or using grey for the back… but in the end I decided to go with color! It worked out great… the back of the quilt is almost as cool as the front now 🙂

Last night I stitched the top of the binding and today I’m handstitching the binding on the backside. I think it was Petrá’s idea of using clothespins to hold the binding in place. Sweet ~ I didn’t want to have to buy anything extra this week, and I had clothespins already… so YAY!